“It’s a big risk, some fire services have introduced them as an additional service, not as a replacement service.

“We are being thrown in at the deep end by actually replacing fire engines with these vehicles. There’s no back up and there’s a major concern for our safety.”

Despite these concerns, Mr Hayward stressed the smaller vehicle would still have the equipment necessary to deal with a number of instances.

He said: “In other places they are using the vehicles as smaller units but we are looking at a greater role for them. We think they will be able to deal with many instances on their own, like road accidents, but will be part of a bigger picture to deal with instances like house fires.”